


to be forgotten

by angel_deux



Series: we should kind of forget about season 8 [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, F/M, Fix-It, also i know you probably want this to be dramatic, also say what you want about my interpretation of Jaime's plan to go back north after, as always this story is lodged in jaime's colon, bc if i was reading the summary for this i would probably want it to be dramatic, but it's definitely not dramatic and actually really restrained lmao, but you can't tell me im wrong because i will not listen to you, especially brienne's perception about why jaime left, he just gets bonked on the head and forgets everything for a little while, i mean mostly everything's the same except jaime doesn't die, not Dany friendly, some parts are based around post-show interviews
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24023755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_deux/pseuds/angel_deux
Summary: After being nearly killed beneath the Red Keep, Jaime forgets almost everything about his life.All he can remember is that he has to go north.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister & Arya Stark, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: we should kind of forget about season 8 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1476620
Comments: 79
Kudos: 373





	to be forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted "waking up with amnesia" on tumblr, and for a while I thought that I was going to do a modern version. Then I took a shower, and the whole plot immediately came to me, and then I sat down and wrote this as quickly as possible. As I warned in the tags, it's fairly restrained, and not nearly as dramatic as you probably want it to be, and it loves Jaime almost as much as I do.

_North_ , he thinks. His heart beats in his ears with every stumbling step down into the crypts. _See her safe, and then north_.

All the way south, it has been ringing in his ears. He cannot think of anything but the list. _South. Get inside the gates. Find Cersei. See her safe. Return north. Explain. Apologize_. The list keeps him moving. It keeps him focused. It keeps him from regretting, or wishing, or hoping.

 _See her safe, and then north_.

It sounds so simple like that, but he’s losing blood and losing life, and he knows he has failed her. Them. Both of them. Cersei is crying behind him, and he thinks of when their mother died and Cersei crept into his bed so they could cry together, holding each other. _We have each other_ , he had said. _Nothing else matters_. It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now, but it’s the only thing he has left to offer, and so he holds her as they die. He wishes it all could have been different. He wishes he could have saved her. He wishes she could have loved him. He wishes…

The rocks fall.

 _See her safe, and then north_.

* * *

His head hurts. He lurches. Nothing works the way he wants it to. He moves his head, and white-hot pain lances through his eyeball, back into his skull. He shouts. It echoes. The dust is in his lungs, but he cannot cough. His ribs hurt when he tries, and dizziness overtakes him. Blackness, spots in his vision. He falls to his knees.

 _See her safe_.

She is there. He can see her. _Her_. Beneath the rubble. He touches her face, feels for a heartbeat in her throat. She looks as if she is sleeping. She isn’t. His blood drips onto her lips. He loved her once. He knows it.

 _Safe_.

She’s safe, asleep, hidden here beneath the earth where no one can hurt her.

 _And then north_.

 _North_.

He finds his feet again, but his leg won’t move the way he needs it to. The pain again in his head. It throbs. He grabs it with his hand, and it’s soft, hot blood spilling over his fingers.

 _Oh_ , he thinks. The pain comes back. He’s on his knees again. _North_. _And then north_.

“Jaime!” shouts a voice. He hears rocks shifting. He looks, but cannot see. Shapes, only shapes. Gray. Something golden, coming towards him. “Jaime. Oh, gods. Davos, quickly! He’s…”

* * *

There is a man by his bed, in this tent.

A small man, with stunted legs. Handsome. Crying. The man looks up. Gasps.

“Jaime,” he says.

 _He’s looking at me. That’s my name_.

“Jaime,” Jaime repeats. It comes out slurred, unfamiliar. “I…”

“Here, some water,” the other man says. Jaime struggles with his one hand. It’s not the hand he’s used to using, he doesn’t think. But he can grasp the cup, and then he drinks gratefully.

“Thank you,” he says. _And then north_. He tries to sit, but the short man pushes him back.

“Jaime, what are you doing? Stay still.”

“North,” he says. “I have to go north.”

“You already did, Jaime. That’s over. It’s done.”

 _No_ , Jaime thinks. _I would remember. I have to go north_. But he is tired again. Dragged under.

* * *

“My brother,” he says. Another unfamiliar word. He knows what it means. He doesn’t think he has ever said it. “Are you sure?”

“ _Yes_. Do you truly not remember?”

“No.”

“You remember your name.”

“You told me my name.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“In a bed.”

“ _No_ , Jaime. What city?”

There is nothing. Gray shapes. Something that should be there.

“I should,” he admits, and the small man—his _brother_ —lets out a shuddering breath.

“You’ve lived here more than half your life.”

“Oh,” Jaime says, because he doesn’t know what else his brother wants. “I don’t know.”

“And our sister?”

“Sister,” Jaime says. Gray shapes again. Gold and gray. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” his brother says, with a hint of a smile. “Small blessings.”

* * *

His brother comes and goes. He never stays for long. He always looks tired. He always looks afraid. Jaime waits as long as he can, because he feels guilt, for some reason he can’t figure out. But eventually, he has to ask again.

“I have to go north.”

“We’ve discussed this. You already went. You don’t remember?”

“No.”

“Do you remember nothing else?”

“ _See her safe, and then north_. That’s all.”

“You rode north to fight against the dead. You did that. You came back here because you’re a fucking _idiot_ who doesn’t know what to do with any glimmer of happiness. Do you remember that?”

“No.”

“I should have asked you what the fuck you were thinking when I got the chance.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t- don’t _look_ at me like that, Jaime. Gods. Here. Have some more water. I’ll need to get a maester to you as quick as I can, but as you can imagine, they’re all quite busy. I’ll try and appeal to the queen.”

Jaime doesn’t know what that means, or why his brother looks so nervous, but he nods anyway.

* * *

He is dragged before a woman he doesn’t recognize, in a room that looks like it must have once been a throne room. It’s damaged, now. Open to the sky. His leg still hurts. His side. His head throbs in the sunlight, and he has to cover his eyes. The woman doesn’t blink. Everything around him smells of ash and smoke, and she stares at him.

“You say he doesn’t remember anything,” the woman says. His brother is here, too. Watching the woman warily.

“He doesn’t,” his brother says. The woman stands from her throne, and she walks towards Jaime. She is small, but he is frightened anyway. She looks down at him, where he has been forced to his knees.

“He has abused my hospitality too much already. Throw him in the cells.”

“Your grace, he’s not well enough! He’ll…”

“You’re lucky I don’t order him burned, with you beside him,” the woman snaps. “I know what you did.”

His brother is arguing, protesting, but Jaime is taken away, and led to the dungeons, and left.

* * *

_And then north_.

_And then north._

_And then north_.

* * *

Nobody comes for days. Jaime coughs, and there is a chill he cannot get rid of. Then there is a man with black hair who comes to see him.

“I know what needs to be done,” the man says. “But I don’t know if I can. It was never supposed to go this far.”

“I can’t help you,” Jaime says. “I don’t know who you are.”

“Neither do I,” the black-haired man replies.

* * *

When next Jaime is allowed out of his cell, it is another woman who takes him. Younger, with dark hair. Small, but she supports Jaime when he stumbles. There is blood smeared on one cheek.

“Call me the Queenslayer,” she says, when Jaime asks. “We’re a matching set now. Come on.”

* * *

His brother is waiting in the throne room. The man with the black hair sits upon it.

“He really doesn’t remember?” the man asks Jaime’s brother.

“No. Nothing. Not even me.”

“We’ll have a maester take a look at his head. One of them must know something of this, and he doesn’t look well. Arya, if you could help him to one of the tents?”

“Aye, your grace,” the young woman says, and the black-haired man glares at her.

“ _Arya_ ,” he snaps. She bows, exaggerated.

“You’re welcome,” she says, glaring back just as fiercely.

* * *

_And then north_.

“I need to go north,” he says. His brother sighs.

“You already did,” he replies. “You fought the dead.”

“You told me that. I still need to go north.”

“The north would not welcome you. Nor would they welcome me. We’re lucky Jon’s the Stark we’re stuck here with, because he’s a lot more forgiving than Sansa. I doubt you left things very well with Brienne, and she’ll…”

“Brienne.”

 _Brienne_.

“Do you remember?”

Jaime hates to hear the hopeful note in his brother’s voice, but he has to shake his head.

“No,” he says, but there was something. A spark. Blue through the gray. A tug. A pain. A hurt that now stays inside him. An absence that he didn’t know was in him, and now he can’t forget.

* * *

“Do you know my name?”

His brother asks every morning. Jaime supposes he could ask Arya, when she comes to visit and deliver his meals and teach him about the different houses, and the things he still can’t remember.

“No,” Jaime says every morning. He tries, though. He looks at his brother. He loves his brother. He can feel it. “Tywin?” he asks. His brother laughs, strangled, and brushes tears from his eyes.

“No,” his brother says. “But you’re getting closer.”

* * *

The maester says Jaime’s memory may return. _May_.

“His head was injured badly,” he says to Jaime’s brother, prodding at the spot in Jaime’s head that still pains him sometimes. A spike of pain goes through him, and he bites back a groan. His brother watches nervously. “Healing will take time. His memory may never return, but perhaps it will. I’ve seen things like it before, especially after battle. Men forgetting. They’re unpredictable injuries. I wish I could tell you more.”

Jaime’s brother thanks the man and dismisses him.

“Not very encouraging,” Jaime’s brother says, but Jaime doesn’t agree. He thought his memory would be gone forever. Now there’s hope.

* * *

_And then north_.

“What’s north?” he asks Arya. She’s sitting by the window, writing a letter. They were moved from tents into a part of the castle that wasn’t completely destroyed. Arya says she likes Jaime’s room best because it has good lighting, but Jaime knows better. She told him once that he’s the only one who would never judge her. _Jon judges me_ , she said once. _His own sister. Because I did what he wouldn’t. I saved all of us. You did the same thing, once_. Jaime doesn’t remember that, but he _does_ remember the queen that Arya killed, and he remembers the cruelty in her eyes. He told Arya that, and he told her that he would never judge her, and now Arya visits more, and stays longer.

“North?” she asks. “The Starks, stupid. My house. I told you that.”

“What’s north for me?” he elaborates. She puts the letter down and turns to face him. One eyebrow raises.

“For you?” she asks. She seems amused.

“When I woke, it was all I remembered. _See her safe, and then north_. I need to go north. My brother says I already have.”

“You did. I was there, too. We fought against the dead. Do you remember any of that?”

“No.”

Sometimes he does. Sometimes he remembers darkness and pain and exhaustion. Usually when he sleeps, and then those memories fade when he wakes, but not enough.

“You rode north against your sister’s wishes, because you wanted to fight for the living with the rest of us. You said once that Brienne convinced you. Do you remember that?”

“No,” he says. He can feel himself wince. Arya notices, because Arya notices everything.

“Do you remember Brienne?”

“No. But.”

“But?”

“She’s…a shape. I can…I don’t know how…”

“Take your time,” Arya says. He doesn’t like her as much when she’s like this. Serious, and searching, like she’s looking for something. He likes her best when she pretends he’s normal, when she laughs at him and calls him stupid for forgetting.

“Everything is gray, when I try to remember. But she isn’t. She’s…blue.”

“Her armor is blue. Armor you had made for her. Her eyes are blue.”

Arya is watching him closely, and he feels _relieved_ to know. Blue. Yes. He was right. There’s something there.

“I miss her,” he says. “She’s…a lack.”

“You don’t remember her, but you miss her anyway?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Well, shit,” Arya says, leaning back against the windowsill. “Isn’t _that_ romantic?”

* * *

“We’re going north,” Arya says, and Jaime’s brother bristles.

“You are _not_. He isn’t well enough to ride, and he can’t remember anything. I’m not letting you take him up to face the wolves alone.”

“He remembers that he wants to go north. You think it’ll help him recover if he’s just sitting here all day thinking he has to go north and being told he can’t? He can remember _one_ thing. We should give it to him.”

“He’s _stuck_. He remembers wanting to ride north to fight against the dead.”

“And he told you that, did he? Told you that he needs to ride north _for the dead_?”

“It’s obvious.”

“Oh, is it?”

“Arya,” the king sighs from his throne, rubbing the spot between his eyes where Jaime sometimes gets headaches himself.

“You think you’re so clever, but you don’t _listen_ to him. He misses Brienne, and he wants to go north. He said that the _only_ thing he can remember is ‘see her safe, and then north’. Who do you think _her_ is? Obviously Cersei. He was trying to save her, and then he was going to go back north.” When Jaime’s brother stares at her, she folds her arms across her chest with a smug smile that makes Jaime laugh. “It’s _obvious_.”

“He would never have left Cersei. You didn’t know him the way I did.”

“He _did_ leave Cersei. What are you talking about?”

“And then he went _back_.”

“To save her from the _dragons_. I don’t know why he waited so long or why he wasn’t smarter about it, but he wasn’t going back for good. Look at him!”

Everyone looks at him now, and Jaime doesn’t quite know what to say.

“You were the one who let him out,” Arya continues, looking at Jaime’s brother. Meeting his eyes. “I know you did. You were the one who let him go to her. You were going to help them escape. You _told_ me, weeks ago, that he wasn’t acting like himself when he was a prisoner, even before he hit his head. That he was acting strange, saying things he wouldn’t say. If you were as clever as you think you are, that would have clued you in, wouldn’t it?”

“Arya,” Jon says again.

“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t…” Jaime’s brother starts, and Jaime sighs.

“Tyrion,” he says.

Everyone looks at him again. He doesn’t know what he had planned to say. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.

“Tyrion,” he says again, and Tyrion laughs, and wipes his eyes, and nods.

* * *

“Arya Stark,” he says. She groans aloud.

“You _knew_ that already.”

“Yes, but now I can remember you, I think.”

They’re riding north, just as she promised.

“What do you remember?”

“You were smaller, once.”

She laughs aloud.

“You’re an idiot. Yes, I was a child before I grew up. Good job.”

“Winterfell,” he says. “You were at Winterfell. I remember you scurrying around with the boys.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. I think.”

“Maybe you’re just guessing.”

“I don’t know.”

“What about the others. Do you remember my sister?”

“…red hair?”

“Good job!” This time, less sarcastic, and he feels embarrassed to be so proud.

* * *

“I think I remember when they cut off my hand,” he says as they camp by a river. He remembers fighting someone on a bridge over a river. He remembers the way it felt to hold a sword in two hands. “I remember _having_ two hands.”

“Probably would’ve been nice if the gods kept that memory for themselves, eh?” Arya asks, good-natured as always. “What was it like?”

“It hurt.”

“Genius, you are. What else?”

“I thought I would die. I think I wanted to die.”

“Well, you didn’t.”

“No. Brienne was there.”

Arya smiles at that.

“Yeah, she wouldn’t have let you.”

* * *

_See her safe, and then north_.

“I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

“Well, that’s too bad. We’re talking about it. Sansa and Brienne have already left Winterfell, so we’re gonna run into them sooner than I’d like, and we should get it straight before we see them.”

“You’re…a _child_.”

“Am not. I killed a queen.”

“That doesn’t make you any less of a child.”

“Did you feel like a child when you killed your king?”

Jaime thinks about it. Probes at the gray mass in his memory until he can remember _something_. Feelings are easier than details, still. Sometimes the details come to him suddenly, startling. The way Cersei looked when she took off her dress. The way he fought in the Whispering Wood. Bran Stark…

He doesn’t like to remember some things. He doesn’t like to remember _most_ things, actually. The gray mass in his memory is probably a blessing. What else will he find there if he probes too deeply?

“I didn’t feel like a child,” he finally says. “But now I feel like I was.”

“Well, you’re old now. That makes sense. Doesn’t mean we aren’t gonna talk about it. You fucked Brienne.”

“ _Gods_.”

“What? You did. You fucked your own sister, too. You’re lucky we’re talking about Brienne.”

“You say it like it was so…”

“You fucked a highborn lady and then left her alone instead of marrying her. You’re the one who made it into something awful.”

“You’re right.”

“You’re supposed to get annoyed and tell me you were going back for her.”

“I was. But you’re still right.”

“You’re supposed to remind me that you were brokenhearted and lost when you got back to Kings Landing, and that you didn’t feel like yourself anymore.”

“I didn’t. But you’re still right.”

“She’s never gonna take you back if you’re this pathetic about it.”

“Maybe she shouldn’t.”

He pulls his horse to a halt, suddenly. The gray mass in his memory pulses, smaller than ever. He feels…wretched. Terrible. He remembers only vaguely the way she cried when he left, and the way he left anyway, and the fact that he had to stop thinking about it, all the way back south. He had to try to save his sister, but he couldn’t do that while he knew he had hurt the woman he loved, and so it had all gone, locked away, until after, when he would be able to face it.

Arya realizes now that he has stopped, and she whirls her horse around and trots back to him, annoyed.

“Come on,” she says.

“Maybe she shouldn’t,” he says again, stronger.

“Maybe she shouldn’t, but that’s _her_ choice to make. You’re not too much of a coward to face her, are you?”

“Maybe I am.”

“You’re not. You didn’t bitch about riding north every day for months just to turn around now. So come _on_.”

* * *

When he sees her for the first time, there’s dirt on her neck. It’s made darker by the sweat, smeared like she tried wiping it off with her hands, but not well enough. He stares at it, and she stares back at him. Arya runs ahead to throw herself into her sister’s arms. Sansa, he remembers perfectly now. She hugs Arya tight. Brienne stands just behind her.

“Look who got dragged out of the rubble,” Arya says, jerking her thumb back towards him, as if Brienne hadn’t already noticed. “Figured the Queenslayer and Kingslayer should travel together. Start a Mummer’s show, maybe. Couple of wandering slayers.” Brienne swallows. Jaime follows the motion of her throat. He finally has to look at her eyes, and they are on him. “Come on, Sansa,” Arya says. “Come meet my horse, or something.” She manages to pull away her icy older sister, muttering explanations as they go, and Jaime can finally move again. The northern queen’s entire retinue is around them, setting up camp for the night, but Jaime still feels like he and Brienne are alone. He doesn’t know any of these men. He doesn’t think he knew them before.

“Tyrion wrote us,” Brienne says. “Before. He said you couldn’t remember anything.”

“I couldn’t. I do now.”

“Oh. He didn’t…”

“It’s been getting better. On the road. I only remembered Tyrion’s name just before we left. Arya’s been helping me. Or. Making things worse. I don’t know. She thinks it’s funny to lie to me, but sometimes I remember the truth, so maybe it _is_ helping.”

“That’s…good.” She is looking at him as if she can’t quite understand why he’s standing in front of her, babbling the way he is. “He thought you would die, the first time he wrote. He said your head was quite badly injured.”

“The maester said I might never remember everything.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. Seems most of what I remember is more shit, anyway.”

“I would be happy to help, if you…”

“I remember you. That’s not a problem.” Brienne looks startled by that, somehow. “Even when I couldn’t remember anything else, I remembered…” He hesitates. He hates to see her look at him so distrustfully. Even though he knows he doesn’t remember everything, he doubts there was ever a time that she looked at him with so much hurt. “You were blue, in my memory. Everything else was gray. You weren’t.”

“Oh.”

“When I…I remember coming to, and I remember thinking that I had to go north. Even before I remembered that was where you were. Or who you were. And now I remember. I rode south to save her, Brienne, because I needed to. Because I thought it was what I needed. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. I needed to see her safe, and then ride back north. To be with you, if you would have me.”

“I know,” she says. It surprises him.

“What?”

“I know that. I know why you left.”

“Oh.”

“I thought you would die. I thought it was _hopeless_. I never thought you were leaving because you wanted to.”

“It almost _was_ hopeless. I must have been mad to think I could pull it off.”

“You forget I know you. You would not want me to follow you, and so I didn’t. But I wanted to.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“I suppose I am, too. Now that you’re alive. But there was a long time where…” She sighs. Still hurt. Still looking at him slightly sideways, in defiance of her words. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you are.”

“I expected to have to beg for your forgiveness. I still can, if you’d like.”

“I’m not the type to require that.”

“No, I remember.”

“Do you?”

“I think I do. I used to dream of you. Even before I knew you were you. I’d wake up missing you.”

She smiles at that, just a bit. He reaches out his hand, as if to touch her, but hesitates, and lets her make the choice. She makes it gladly. She gives her hand to him. She allows him to kiss it. He feels like a fool for doing it. Kissing the back of her knuckles as chastely as if he has not fucked her dozens of times.

“Come on,” she says. “You need rest, and I need…a little while. A little time.”

“All right. Whatever you need. I…”

“Jaime.” He meets her eyes. The nervousness fades. The blue of them is exactly the shade he remembers. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He nods. The need has faded, he realizes. The driving need. _And then north. And then north_. This is where it has led him.

“I’m glad too,” he says, and he can only hope that she believes him.


End file.
